Global champions: Who's paying attention?

Multinational corporations are increasingly reliant on a cadre of key individuals for organizational cohesion, and to implement globalization strategies. Survey evidence, however, suggests that many firms are mismanaging the performance, reward, and recognition of these “global champions.” Existing HRM literature largely overlooks the problem. Drawing on a “holistic HRM” analytical framework, the research reported here evaluates how a sample of leading MNEs is addressing this challenge as a source of transnationally competitive advantage. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

GP PRACTICE BUDGETS: AN EVALUATION OF THE FINANCIAL RISKS AND REWARDS

This paper considers the progress to date of those GP practices which have decided to become fundholding practices. We note that already, within the first year of operation, both GP fundholders and District Health Authorities have developed a number of budget ploys. As part of our work we report on the findings of a pilot survey of GP budget holders in the Kent Family Health Service. We conclude that if budget holding becomes the normal pattern of general practice, there will need to be a considerable development of the financial skills and managerial capabilities of the practices and it may be time for the new GP practice manager to come of age.     

Rapid growth and changing economic structure: The expenditure side story and its implications for China

The purpose of this essay has not been to provide China with a detailed list of all of the things that the country must do to maintain a high growth rate. The purpose of this essay instead has been to analyze some of the most basic choices that China must make going forward, choices that are not yet fully understood either by government or private analysts. China has a very unusual economic structure at least on the aggregate demand side and that creates special challenges that other countries have not had to face to the same degree. How well China handles these challenges will determine whether it will continue to progress rapidly to middle income status and beyond.     

A Simulation Analysis to Evaluate the Impact of the Automatic Stabilizers

A model of a firm' decision to guarantee job reinstatement following a parental leave is constructed. Guaranteed reinstatement emerges if the worker is willing to sacrifice wages greater than or equal to the minimum amount a firm requires for the policy. Predictions from the model find support in the empirical analysis. Firm size, training costs, and unions increase, which mobility of jobs skills decrease, the likelihood of a guaranteed leave.     

Exploring the Mechanisms through which Strong Ties Impact upon the Development of Ideas in SME Contexts

Present theories highlight the varied roles played by weak and strong ties in idea generation, and development, respectively, but the mechanisms through which ties operate to influence the creative process remain uncertain. Investigating this issue across a range of SMEs, this paper demonstrates that strong ties influence idea development through three mechanisms; endorsement and validation, developing cognizance, and encouraging constructive dissent. These mechanisms positively impact idea development by creating organizational spaces that are primed to critically receive ideas, energize knowledge sharing by better transacting resources across network connections, and drive divergent thinking by disordering, but not fracturing, social spaces.     

Roger Lowenstein. Origins of the Crash: The Great Bubble and Its Undoing. New York: Penguin, 2004. ix + 270 pp. ISBN 1-59420-003-3, $24.95 (cloth); 0-14-303-467-7, $15.00 (paper).

What happened on Wall Street from 1997 to 2002 was a financialversion of the perfect storm. Almost everything that could gowrong did go wrong simultaneously. The Securities and ExchangeCommission reforms of the 1930s had closed many of the loopholesfor chicanery, but new paths to questionable practices and debasedprinciples eventually emerged. In his examination of the originsof the "dot.com bubble" and the circumstances of the balloon’sbursting, Roger Lowenstein narrates clearly